The high cost of shipping perishable foods, especially in warmer ambient temperatures, is a deterrent for private consumers and professional chefs within the HRI industry (Hotels, Restaurants, and Institutions). In warm ambient temperatures, farmers and food suppliers restrict their shipping service to a 1-day transit time, which normally requires expensive overnight air service.
The Prior Art noted displays many designs of insulated shipping containers, but none achieve affordable transport with extended transit times, nor do they address the current packaging guidelines and dimensional weight specifications of common parcel carriers. In order to ship perishable foods cost-effectively, the following conditions must be addressed collectively in a single design:                1. An insulated shipping container must maintain safe food temperatures during transit times of at least 3 days in any ambient temperature up to 95° F. This allows the use of inexpensive Ground service offered by carriers such as United Parcel Service and Federal Express.        2. The design must be structurally sound to the extent that it satisfies the Packaging Guidelines published by United Parcel Service and Federal Express. The aforementioned Packaging Guidelines require each parcel to have a minimum of two inches of padding between the product and outer surface of the packaging container on all sides of the container. Packages that fail to meet this minimum requirement are not considered safe and insurable. Due to the unpredictable positioning of any package on the carriers' truck or railcar, every insulated container must be able to withstand at least 200 pounds of axial load on any side. Adhering to these guidelines assures that insurance claims due to damage by the carrier during transit will be honored.        3. The interior volume of an insulated container must fit the collective volume of the payload to be shipped and the refrigerant required to maintain the desired temperature during the cold chain transit time. There cannot be excess space for two reasons:        a. Excess air inside the insulated container will accelerate the endothermic process inside an insulated container.        b. Shipping rates are calculated by the larger of either the actual weight as measured on a scale, or by Dimensional Weight as calculated by multiplying the length, width, and height of a package and then dividing that product by a set divisor established by the shipping carrier. For instance, a 20×16×14 inch empty box will be billed as if the box weighed 33 pounds even though the actual scaled weight of the box is only 2 pounds. Therefore, a container that is unnecessarily larger than what is required will cost more to ship.        In order to avoid the excess shipping of Dimensional Weight as enforced by the shipping carriers, the design of an insulated container must be flexible to accommodate any interior volume and rectangular dimension to the extent that there is no additional expense during the manufacturing process attributed to re-tooling or setup of the manufacturing equipment.        4. Regardless of size, insulated shipping containers should collapse or breakdown to affect minimal storage and maximum quantity on a shipping pallet. This lowers the cost of shipping bulk amounts to shippers and reduces the storage space required at the shipping facility.        
The present industry standard for shipping perishable foods consists of a 2-piece insulated container molded of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) that is usually placed inside a corrugated box. The section that holds the product and refrigerant is unitary with a bottom and four sides molded in a single section. The top usually has a groove around the perimeter that fits into compatible grooves on the top edge of the lower section. This system has shortcomings inherent to the design that limits transit times and causes structural failure:                1. The wall thickness of molded coolers is normally less than 2″ thick. This specification does not adhere to the Packaging Guidelines published by United Parcel Service and Federal Express, which voids any insurance claim when there is damage during transit.        2. The thickness of any insulating material is a factor that dictates the R-value or measure of thermal resistance of that material. The R-value of Expanded Polystyrene with a 1-pound density is 4.17 per inch of material at a mean temperature of 40° F. and 3.85 per inch of material at a mean temperature of 75° F. Consequently, the 2-inch thickness of insulation used in the present invention provides a total R-value is 8.34 at a mean temperature of 40° F. In contrast, molded coolers have R-values between 3.85 and 5.78. We tested a variety of molded EPS coolers using temperature data loggers and actual transit conditions. Our tests show that when the R-value of an insulated molded cooler is less than 6.0, the resistance to heat flow is insufficient to keep perishable food safe during transit times of more than 30 hours in ambient temperatures above 70° F.        3. Molded coolers require more storage space. Examples:        a) A 12″×10″×10″ molded cooler requires 1200 cubic inches of storage, which is 25% more than our system.        b) A 20″×14″×12″ molded cooler requires 3360 cubic inches of storage, which is 57% more than our system.        c) A 30″×20″×14″ molded cooler requires 8400 cubic inches of storage, which is 94% more than our system.        4. Because molded coolers require more storage space, shipping bulk quantities requires more pallets. This extra shipping cost raises the bottom-line purchase price of molded coolers.        5. Molded 2-piece coolers have a high rate of structural failure during transit. Their unitary design will not withstand axial or lateral impact from normal carrier handling during transit. The fractures normally start at the vertical and bottom corners and then migrate across the bottom of the cooler. This causes thermal failure and eventually spoiled food.        6. The corrugated boxes supplied with molded coolers are pre-assembled using a single layer of tape. This does not adhere to the Packaging Guidelines published by United Parcel Service and Federal Express and may void any insurance claim when there is damage during transit.        7. In order to manufacture a molded 2-piece cooler, very expensive tooling is required for each individual size.        
This invention solves all of the shortcomings of previous and existing insulated cooler designs. Furthermore, this invention has been extensively tested in all ambient temperatures under rigorous handling conditions in transit by United Parcel Service.